Rating: 
Summary: great book.........
Review: ...but the fudamentalist won't like it! But they don't like much of anything that goes against their narrow, exclusive beliefs.
The Gospel According to Jesus is a magnificent, large-hearted book that makes Jesus come alive again. If you are burnt out on "fundagelicalism", then read this book and be refreshed!
Rating:
Summary: great book.........
Review: ...but the fudamentalist won't like it! But they don't like much of anything that goes against their narrow, exclusive beliefs.
The Gospel According to Jesus is a magnificent, large-hearted book that makes Jesus come alive again. If you are burnt out on "fundagelicalism", then read this book and be refreshed!
Rating:
Summary: It's the message, not the man
Review: A wonderful, enlightening book. Stephen Mitchell has succeeded in distilling what is valid and relevant from what is invalid and irrelevant in the New Testament. Growing up Catholic, I never understood the significance my religion placed on the crucifixtion. It just didn't made any sense to me that I should be joyful that an innocent man was tortured and died for my sins. Why would God be pleased with that or require that for me to be forgiven? But, like Mr. Mitchell, upon reflection I don't believe that was ever the reason Jesus died or that his death was the essence of his gift. His teachings were his gift. And when we focus on those teachings, we learn who this man truly was. And then we have cause to be joyful, as I am every time I read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad Scholarship
Review: Anyone can take parts of the New Testament to show this or that (in Mitchell's case to support the Zen view of Jesus). The point is to study it as a whole in an academic manner. I would recommend Meier "Marginal Jew" or Brown "Death of the Messiah" or even Grimbol's "Idiot's Guide to Life of Christ" If you must translate and comment fine, but don't edit, and do use historical evidence. Really shallow, and I am not a fundamentalist or Catholic; I am a bleeding heart liberal.
Rating:
Summary: A simple condensation of modern scholarship
Review: As a trained theologian myself, I could write far more complexly on this subject, and, I imagine, could Mitchell. But for someone who wants to know what the Biblical scholars, archaelogists, and so forth have come up with in the last few generations, this is a simple book to read, yet comprehensive in a few words. Some people will be offended, because they reject modernity and scholarship. But most will have serveal "Aha!" experiences as they read.
Rating:
Summary: I dare say a must read for the spiritual
Review: Do you think Jesus acts schitzophrenic in the Biblical gospels? Humble and loving one moment, Hell and Damnation the next? Buddhist Mitchell culls away two millenia of popular myth to reveal a Jesus that is a universal and benevolent Jewish sage, and a real, accessible human being.This book affected me deeply, helping me to clean the dirt off the mirror, and realize things Lao Tzu would say I already knew.
Rating:
Summary: People have been burned at the stake for less
Review: I cant imagine what the medieval inquisitioners would have thought of this book. I sure am glad that humans have grown up a little since then, and we can start to see behind some of the fables in the New Testament, such as the virgin birth - that it may in fact be a legacy of Jesus's illegitimate birth, of a Roman soldier and a Jewish woman. Mitchell surreptitously uses his own Zen enlightenment/Gnosis experience (under Zen master Seung Sahn) to shed light on Jesus's enlightenment. I have a small quibble with Mitchell's skepticism re Jesus's healing power and resurrection, but otherwise this is one powerful book. Just dont try to discuss it with any fundamentalists or Catholics, like I did - phew. :)
Rating:
Summary: Stephen Mitchell should stick to Rilke.
Review: I have long enjoyed reading Mitchell's translations of Rilke. However, I found his reading of the gospels to be a smug editorial far more comfortable in its views than those of the strictest traditional Christian commentators. Mr. Mitchell has stripped the gospels of their poetry.
Rating:
Summary: Jesus According to Mitchell
Review: I have read a number of Stephen Mitchell's translations, not out of any great regard for the results of his efforts, but out of interest in the writings he has selected to translate. I therefore had moderate expectations when I bought his "Gospel According to Jesus." However, having read his lengthy introduction, I can only conclude that Mitchell is one of the most presumptuous men I have ever encountered in print. At the core of his comments is a claim that he is able to discern what is and is not authentic in the writings of the New Testament because--as he unmistakably implies--he is not only more enlightened than the authors of the Christian scriptures, but also more enlightened than Jesus himself. If ever a man was "wise in his own conceit," Mitchell is that man. I am not a fan of organized religion and thus have no objection to a scholarly dissection of the Bible (or the sacred texts of any other religion). But what I find insufferable in Mitchell is his complacency. He rather reminds me of a monkey glaring at a pride of lions from his perch in a distant tree. From his remote perspective, it seems to him that the lions, after all, aren't all that big. Next, he concludes that lions are really nothing to be afraid of; indeed, it's they who are afraid of him! Finally, he drifts off to sleep with a belly full of bananas, dreaming that he, in fact, is the King of the Jungle.
Rating: 
Summary: Profound, yet incomplete
Review: I purchased this book when it first came out in late 1993, after reading a laudatory review of it in Commonweal. Its insights into the man Jesus -- admittedly empathic and speculative rather than academic -- are profound, and I find myself still referring back to many of its passages. I especially like Mitchell's discussion of how Jesus's perceived illegitimacy led to his focusing on forgiveness, and on Joseph as the real hero of the Christmas story. My only problem with Mitchell's portrayal of Jesus as "spiritual master" is that it leaves out those qualities of Jesus that got himself killed. The historical record is clear that the real Jesus was crucified by the Romans, most likely for disturbing the peace (like overturning the money tables in the Temple). I can't see Mitchell's Jesus acting in such a way that would get himself crucified.
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